Dr Jenkins, 78, speaking to The Times, said that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, must not allow himself to be “bullied” by evangelicals when the 37 other primates that he has summoned to an extraordinary meeting gather at Lambeth Palace this week.

Anglican and Episcopal Churches worldwide, Dr Jenkins said, should concentrate on the business of mission and serving the flock within their national boundaries.

Dr Jenkins remains one of the Church of England’s most influential theologians in retirement. He was speaking as the worldwide Church prepares for possible schism over the election of the gay, divorced father of two Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in the United States and the authorisation of a rite for same-sex blessings in New Westminster, Canada.

More than half of the 38 primates, archbishops and presiding bishops from provinces worldwide are opposed to Canon Robinson’s election and are demanding action from Dr Williams. Evangelical and traditionalist clergy from America who met to discuss the crisis last week will present the primates with demands for a “parallel jurisdiction” to be set up for “orthodox” Anglicans.

The new province would have its own archbishop and transcend national boundaries, making it a “Church within the Church”. It would operate along similar lines to England’s “flying bishops”, ordained to be pastors to opponents of women priests.But Dr Jenkins said that Dr Williams should resist this call and insisted instead that the whole structure should be dissolved. This would save millions of pounds for the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the US, which contribute by far the most cash towards the worldwide management structure of the communion.

Dr Jenkins cited the late Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, who, he said, had doubted the point of the Anglican Communion. The whole concept was one that had followed the former British Empire. Churches should be “concerned with the unity and future of the Christian Church and mission in the country and areas of which they are part,” he said.

He added: “I have increasingly felt that this notion that the Anglican Communion was something like a papal communion was a mistake. The very name, Anglican, relates to the English set-up.”

The Anglican Communion is said by its officials to represent 70 million or more Anglicans worldwide. Of these, 25 million are in England. But a small fraction of these “members” are churchgoers. In England fewer than one million now go to church each Sunday. Worldwide, a recent survey found just 23.9 million people are worshipping Anglicans.

There is little legal structure that binds the communion together. Even if the communion were dissolved, Dr Williams would be free to invite as many bishops as he wanted from around the world to the Lambeth Conference. This meeting of worldwide bishops, which takes place every ten years, existed decades before any formal structure was given to the communion.

Dr Jenkins’s plea came as a serving bishop in the Church of England disclosed that he will reveal details of his homosexual lifestyle in his autobiography when he retires. In a move intended to expose the hypocrisy of an organisation that keeps its gays in the closet, he will claim that at least seven of the 113 bishops in the Church are gay or bisexual.

An ICM poll of 500 regular churchgoers published yesterday found that more than half believed that being a practising homosexual should not be a barrier to ordination.

Champion of gay rights and women

Views appearing to question the literal truth of some of the most sacred items of faith in the Christian scriptures were a recurring theme of Dr David Jenkins’s ministry (Thair Shaikh writes). He has pursued what he calls an “open, liberal theology” and raised doubts about the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection and virgin birth. In Easter in 1984 he challenged the orthodox view of the Resurrection by saying that it was “not just a conjuring trick with bones”. Other controversial statements have included his championing of homosexual rights, supporting the ordination of women, and speaking out against politicians.

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